Framemaker 11 popups hide behind other windows

Forum|Forum|1 day ago
July 8, 2026
4 replies
23 views

A user is running into an issue with Framemaker 11. Dialog boxes used during the print-to-pdf process (usually alerts about missing fonts, difficulty opening documents, etc.) will be placed in random z-indexed locations on the desktop meaning they will appear behind a variety of other open windows

Popups can even be hidden behind floating chapter windows within framemaker, which renders the book publishing process difficult because each print-to-pdf popup requires you to hunt for and accept the terms of the popup in order to continue with the export process. To make matters worse, using the windows tactic to hover over framemaker in the task bar does not seem to show popups as dependents of the program. I usually only see a list of free floating windows for each book chapter

Are there any resources or plugins I can explore for fixing this? I have adobe extendscript experience with InDesign CC and I’m considering exploring this problem through that lens as a last resort. I just wanted to see if anyone has any other fixes first

I understand this is a problem that may have been fixed with a much later version of Frame, but unfortunately my team is bound to using Framemaker 11 on a perpetual license. The afflicted computer is running Framemaker 11 on Windows 11 and the user states they had not experienced any issues like this on a previous Windows 10 machine

frameexpert

Community Expert

A couple of things to try: Alt-Tab and see if you can get to the popups. Or press that little widget on the far right of the taskbar that minimizes all programs, and just activate FrameMaker and see if the popups show. Or, try to fix whatever problems the popups are complaining about so you have a cleaner publishing process.

www.frameexpert.com

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

Does running FM in a compatibility mode have any impact?

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

I would suggest keeping all documents and book files in tabs in the FM UI & not do free-floating panels at all.

DeltawebAuthor

Known Participant

Keeping book pages in tabs doesn’t necessarily fix the issue either. The popups can appear behind the main framemaker window, sometimes they pop up a few windows deep (close frame, then acrobat, then outlook, etc) but generally, I agree with your recommended workspace workflow

Bob_Niland

Community Expert

To assist other contributors who may have useful conjectures:

The current version of FM is of course FM2026 (18.x). I doubt that FM11.x (circa 2012) was ever considered supported on Windows 11.

Deltaweb: The afflicted computer is running Framemaker 11 on Windows 11 and the user states they had not experienced any issues like this on a previous Windows 10 machine

So what changed is migrating to Windows 11?

Is staying on Win10, air-gapped, an option?
I have a similarly licensed FM7 running in an XP VM on Windows7, and air-gapped is how I use it when needed.

DeltawebAuthor

Known Participant

The environment changed when they got a new computer, yeah. The computer they are using came with Windows 11 pre-installed and while I’ve offered to go backwards in operating systems, the user along with other figureheads of our company have suggested it would be more of a headache to revert instead of continue with the current operating system. The issue isn’t backbreaking by any means, but it creates enough of a time loss for them to notice

They use Framemaker 11 along with other programs that require a network connection on their device, so air-gapping hadn’t been an option previously. I will consider a stand alone windows 10 machine for them and pose that as an opportunity. We have had to go that route with other software before. We are slowly moving away from Framemaker all together, so it might be a good practice

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